Guild Wars 2

DancinPuppeh.8421:

I’m sorry but I have to start this discussion because I need to find out if I’m alone in my thoughts here, and I’m tired of the illogical arguements generated in game regarding this matter.

First of all, before you call me cheap, poor etc. I can easially afford the $50 cost of the expansion, I could afford 100 copies if I really wanted to. But afford and willing to pay are different. I find it absurd to charge the full price of a AAA game for how little content is being added. A few new maps, WvW maps, specilization, new class and mastery system. All of those content additions are wonderful, but is it really worth the full price of a game for content that will last less than 24 hours?

Unless there is far more content being hidden away from us as a surprise I refuse to continue supporting this game, when you consider you can pay for various popular MMO’s such as WoW for $15 and in the MONTHLY update already adds more content than this expansion is adding. Granted WoW is a pay to play but you’re still getting 5x more content for your buck.

Am I the only one who feels this way?

It’s all subjective. If you don’t feel it’s worth the price, then don’t buy it until it goes on sale for a price you feel is acceptable. I know I am going to get several years of playtime for this expansion, so the cost is worth it to me.

I’m not saying GW2 is a bad game, I still believe GW2 is the best MMO on the market to date, but I think it’s a little harsh that new players get the core game free.

By that logic it would be more beneficial for me to create a new account, buy the expansion on a new account and start from the beginning, then sell my excisting account for a fairly large amount of money. Which is a breach of terms and conditions I know. But that is the part I’m unsure of. I doubt the core game is “Free” with the expansion as the devs stated. Cause if so this has to be up there as the worlds most expensive expansion, the cost is only just shy of being able to pre-order Fallout 4… No expansion should match prices of full game releases.

I really feel like you about it! It’s too expensive for a expansion as little it’s seems..
I realy hope there will be more content! But at this point the expansion will be release in 2016 since even the revenant is not ready yet..nothing is… I’m just tired of useless announcements…I want to play HoT!

Don’t you know it is logical and okay to not buy anything that you think is not worth the price. But it is also logical and okay how much Anet want to sell their product.

You don’t buy the expansion, actually nobody will think you are cheap or poor, the fact is nobody care. You can buy anytime you see fit, and i actually hope to see you in HoT.

DancinPuppeh.8421:

I’m not saying GW2 is a bad game, I still believe GW2 is the best MMO on the market to date, but I think it’s a little harsh that new players get the core game free.

By that logic it would be more beneficial for me to create a new account, buy the expansion on a new account and start from the beginning, then sell my excisting account for a fairly large amount of money. Which is a breach of terms and conditions I know. But that is the part I’m unsure of. I doubt the core game is “Free” with the expansion as the devs stated. Cause if so this has to be up there as the worlds most expensive expansion, the cost is only just shy of being able to pre-order Fallout 4… No expansion should match prices of full game releases.

Ah, I know this is just an opinion of mine, but the price that you think is reasonable shouldn’t be reliant on what a new player gets the game for. Ask yourself, and be honest, do you really think it is more valuable for you to make a new account and only play the expansion with that one? You have no materials, no gold, no achievement points, no map completion, no Guild rep, no PvP ranks, no WvW ranks, no dungeon completion, no fractal completion, no gear, and no weapons. A new player is not getting the equivalent of an account that you already have.

The core game currently only exists in the sense that there are still codes for the core game out there, but Anet won’t sell it again because HoT is becoming the core game. It is a different philosophy about expanding the game than most people are used to. New players are not getting two new games; they are getting one new game.

If your complaint is only about the price and the content revealed not being worth it, that is valid. If your complaint is that new players are “getting more”, then it is a bit disingenuous.

Yeap of course Legendaries won’t only be new skins…there will be a path to get our precursor and everything…but seriously how hard you think create Mawdrey path was for A.net? We get specifics items at a specifics places that will be melt with water from another specific hellish fountain place……all thoses places and events already existed before Mawdrey so….I’m guessing that precursor path, recipes and all will be the same.. And I don’t think it’s hard for them to create it because all the mechanics, characters and items are already in the game :’(

A.net is 300 employees over the world: 284 marketing robots and 6 devs. That’s the only explanation of how they are so slow… Skynet please, can you end this? HoT release will be 2017-Judgement-Day. -

MiniEquine.6014:

DancinPuppeh.8421:

I’m not saying GW2 is a bad game, I still believe GW2 is the best MMO on the market to date, but I think it’s a little harsh that new players get the core game free.

By that logic it would be more beneficial for me to create a new account, buy the expansion on a new account and start from the beginning, then sell my excisting account for a fairly large amount of money. Which is a breach of terms and conditions I know. But that is the part I’m unsure of. I doubt the core game is “Free” with the expansion as the devs stated. Cause if so this has to be up there as the worlds most expensive expansion, the cost is only just shy of being able to pre-order Fallout 4… No expansion should match prices of full game releases.

Ah, I know this is just an opinion of mine, but the price that you think is reasonable shouldn’t be reliant on what a new player gets the game for. Ask yourself, and be honest, do you really think it is more valuable for you to make a new account and only play the expansion with that one? You have no materials, no gold, no achievement points, no map completion, no Guild rep, no PvP ranks, no WvW ranks, no dungeon completion, no fractal completion, no gear, and no weapons. A new player is not getting the equivalent of an account that you already have.

The core game currently only exists in the sense that there are still codes for the core game out there, but Anet won’t sell it again because HoT is becoming the core game. It is a different philosophy about expanding the game than most people are used to. New players are not getting two new games; they are getting one new game.

If your complaint is only about the price and the content revealed not being worth it, that is valid. If your complaint is that new players are “getting more”, then it is a bit disingenuous.

Thats right, I will say all the free updates, the living world season 1 and 2 experiences are so much more worth than the free core game. New players won’t able to taste a bit. GW2 is a game that the earlier you buy, the more joy and value you can receive. I expect HoT will give the same experiences, free update, free living story season 3 etc if I start early.

OP, you can wait until HoT discount and miss out all the fun. Your money, your call.

No one is forcing you to buy HoT now, or later. Even if you intended to keep playing GW2 you can do that without buying the expansion, you just won’t be able to play the new content.

As other people have said we don’t know everything that will be included, so it might end up being well worth the price. But we can’t make an informed decision yet. Arguably that means waiting to decide later is the most sensible choice, there’s certainly no harm in it.

But I certainly wouldn’t call it robbery. That would imply they’re simply taking your money and giving you nothing in return, or promising something they have no intention to deliver. If simply offering something for more than a potential customer thinks it’s worth is robbery then virtually every shop I’ve ever been in has tried to rob me at some point because even when I like most their stuff there’s always something that costs more than I would want to pay.

I’m not a fan of the $50 price tag, but I understand ANet wants to make GW2 less intimidating for new players to join by simplifying the purchase to a single price point and can agree with the model on that aspect; however, like you, I haven’t seen or heard anything from ANet that makes me think it’s an expansion (or standalone campaign for those obsessed with splitting hairs) on the same scale as GW1’s Nightfall or Factions.

That being said, we do have the ability to mitigate the price of the expansion with our monthly spending habits. Unlike a subscription MMO we aren’t stuck with paying a full game’s price and doling out ransom money for our characters every month; unless ANet chains all of their developers to their desks and start pumping out $50 expansions every other month it’s fairly trivial to adjust our spending habits to average things out. If you feel that you’re overpaying for the expansion by (for example’s sake) $20 then the next time you want to purchase 1600 gems you can use gold instead of money.

(Granted if you normally don’t spend any money buying gems then you don’t have much of a right to complain about the expansion price)

Alternatively you can go for broke, pick up the $100 Ultimate bundle, and do some creative accounting by breaking down the cost as such: $50 for gems, $20 for two character slots (assuming you qualify for the extra slot), and the remaining $30 is the “actual” price you paid for the expansion. The only benefits you get for prepurchasing would be the cosmetic items and beta access.

adormtil.1605:

I always considered the value of a game the value per hour of my first job when I was in college. So I won 200$ a month working 48 hours a week. So I will have to spend a total of 96 hours in this game to get my moneys worth. Which is not gonna happen because I do not grind for things I do not need legendaries. I play only for the story and maybe try the dungeon once. That will take me at most 10 hours.

single player games are your best bet then mate they are made for players that play like that.

Pandaman.4758:

Alternatively you can go for broke, pick up the $100 Ultimate bundle, and do some creative accounting by breaking down the cost as such: $50 for gems, $20 for two character slots (assuming you qualify for the extra slot), and the remaining $30 is the “actual” price you paid for the expansion. The only benefits you get for prepurchasing would be the cosmetic items and beta access.

That’s exactly what I did.

I buy gems periodically anyway, so by buying the ultimate edition I basically bought my next 4,000 gems in advance (4-6 months worth, depending on how fast they release things I want) and then got the Deluxe edition for about £35, which is what I had originally been expecting to spend on it.

Goo.7926:

Yeap of course Legendaries won’t only be new skins…there will be a path to get our precursor and everything…but seriously how hard you think create Mawdrey path was for A.net? We get specifics items at a specifics places that will be melt with water from another specific hellish fountain place……all thoses places and events already existed before Mawdrey so….I’m guessing that precursor path, recipes and all will be the same.. And I don’t think it’s hard for them to create it because all the mechanics, characters and items are already in the game :’(

A.net is 300 employees over the world: 284 marketing robots and 6 devs. That’s the only explanation of how they are so slow… Skynet please, can you end this? HoT release will be 2017-Judgement-Day. -

what are the last 10 people then?

Goo.7926:

but seriously how hard you think create Mawdrey path was for A.net? We get specifics items at a specifics places that will be melt with water from another specific hellish fountain place……all thoses places and events already existed before Mawdrey so….I’m guessing that precursor path, recipes and all will be the same.. And I don’t think it’s hard for them to create it because all the mechanics, characters and items are already in the game :’(

Let’s say for arguments sake that it took 3 days in total to design, create all of the assets for and test Mawdrey and that it takes the same for the legendary.

That means that it’ll take a maximum of 57 days, or just under 2 months, (assuming that there’s one team of various disciplines working on Legendary weapons) to create the legendary weapons alone, not counting the precursor component. This is also assuming that every piece of the HoT content that is required for creating the legendary weapons is finished.

Now, if you were making a game, would you spend them 2 months designing one set of weapons that won’t be accessible straight away, or would you use them employees in areas of the game that will be accessible to everyone in a shorter time-frame after launch – such as the current precursors and legendaries, map assets etc – than the new legendary weapons, and then finish the legendary weapons?

$10 less for the x-pac than the base game is fine IF the amount of content and quality of content is similar to the base game. That’s a high bar. The base game of GW2 is one of the best MMOs ever made. Period.

Do I think that’s the case? No.

Why? I think anyone can look at a bullet point list of what was in the base game for $60 and look at the bullet point list of what’s in this for $50 and see for themselves.

Because it’s going to be huge!!! (it better be at that price)

Danikat.8537:

Pandaman.4758:

Alternatively you can go for broke, pick up the $100 Ultimate bundle, and do some creative accounting by breaking down the cost as such: $50 for gems, $20 for two character slots (assuming you qualify for the extra slot), and the remaining $30 is the “actual” price you paid for the expansion. The only benefits you get for prepurchasing would be the cosmetic items and beta access.

That’s exactly what I did.

I buy gems periodically anyway, so by buying the ultimate edition I basically bought my next 4,000 gems in advance (4-6 months worth, depending on how fast they release things I want) and then got the Deluxe edition for about £35, which is what I had originally been expecting to spend on it.

Same thing my wife and I did too. We both needed the extra two character slots so that we both have 9 character slots each, and we got that. We occasionally buy gems, but now we don’t have to for quite a while. I’m down to 1400 and my wife still has 3200 from the Ultimate purchases.

Linken.6345:

adormtil.1605:

I always considered the value of a game the value per hour of my first job when I was in college. So I won 200$ a month working 48 hours a week. So I will have to spend a total of 96 hours in this game to get my moneys worth. Which is not gonna happen because I do not grind for things I do not need legendaries. I play only for the story and maybe try the dungeon once. That will take me at most 10 hours.

single player games are your best bet then mate they are made for players that play like that.

I wanna feel legendary and killing by myself a elder dragon counts as that. I really hope they will not go the zaithan route. The combat in this game is magnificent the bosses in the story at least in chapter 2 where more difficult them almost all single player games except dark souls. But the rest sucks with the dungeons sucking the least. But yeah I only play GW2 for the feel of being legendary in combat.

worth it!……………………………

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

Usual pricing for expansions are around $20-$30 usd. I thought Arenanet strives to innovate????

What’s charging $50 for an expansion got to do with innovation?

Lest just wait for Blade and Souls (btw ill alreadt buyed HOT)

The price is very expensive for an expansion. If we consider that we have already seen GW2 for $29.90 dollars, it is not a fair price in my opinion for and expansion.
It may not be so expansive for who receive in dollar but for other countries as in South America where the dollar is so expansive right now the game is costing around 22% of the month minimum wage.

Crovax.7854:

Considering they bought something without knowing what it’s going to be exactly or what it includes -and more importantly- without a fricking release date?
‘Sucker’ migth be a bit harsh but I’d definitely say those people are irresponsible as consumers and just encouraging ANet to put out a subpar product by giving them their money upfront.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely going to buy HoT, but only when we know what features/content it includes and when we have a release date.

I’ve commissioned a few art pieces. I didn’t tell the artist I wouldn’t pay them until they’d done the work. I looked at their art style and their prices for various levels of effort (pencils, inks, colors, number of figures in the piece, etc) and decided what I wanted to invest in a piece of customized artwork of my character(s). While I could specify elements such as “there should be roses,” I left the artistic vision up to them. Has every piece exactly matched my mental image of the subject? No. If it did I would draw the darn thing myself.

If you’re buying a computer or a TV or a car, yes, you should know in advance what you’re paying for. If you’re buying creative work, a little mystery is part of the delight. (Remember I didn’t say buy it completely blind. Look at what’s been done by the creator before deciding to commission more). I’m thrilled with the idea of discovering the cool stuff once HoT launches, the same way I was at vanilla launch with stumbling on all the little details like the woman singing about chickens at Ft. Salma, the events of the PS past level 20, the Gilbert and Sullivan pirate, the events and hearts around the world, etc.

ANet’s said enough and proved their ability enough to make me happy I’ve prepurchased. I don’t feel like a sucker. If they pull a TRION a’la ArcheAge, then I’ll have been a sucker. But that’s not their demonstrated style.

I always see that all item/product valuable is base on the buyer themselves, not the one that is selling it.

If one person thinks he/she is happy with HoT and willing to buy it now. It is fine by me.

However, HoT to me right now is not set at a fair price. If my friends or family ask me for my 2 cents, I will tell them to not buy it now and wait until we get more information.

I know there is a lot going on in HoT, but so far all I am interested in is the new pve maps.

I do not wvw or pvp much. I own no guild, so guild hall is pointless to me. I have no interest in the new class. I am interested in some of these sub-class or whatever they are call.

guild wars 2 story isn’t that great or even good. <—- I will wait on the review on this.

There is hardly any lore in the game for me to get into the game.

So far, to me. Will I pay $50 for 2 or 3 new maps and some of these sub class and a story that might be good or not? NO!

Gilgamesh.1025:

I always see that all item/product valuable is base on the buyer themselves, not the one that is selling it.

If one person thinks he/she is happy with HoT and willing to buy it now. It is fine by me.

However, HoT to me right now is not set at a fair price. If my friends or family ask me for my 2 cents, I will tell them to not buy it now and wait until we get more information.

I know there is a lot going on in HoT, but so far all I am interested in is the new pve maps.

I do not wvw or pvp much. I own no guild, so guild hall is pointless to me. I have no interest in the new class. I am interested in some of these sub-class or whatever they are call.

guild wars 2 story isn’t that great or even good. <—- I will wait on the review on this.

There is hardly any lore in the game for me to get into the game.

So far, to me. Will I pay $50 for 2 or 3 new maps and some of these sub class and a story that might be good or not? NO!

You’d have to play GW1 to understand the lore. I do highly suggest playing that between now and when you decide the expansion is worth buying.

DancinPuppeh.8421:

I’m sorry but I have to start this discussion because I need to find out if I’m alone in my thoughts here, and I’m tired of the illogical arguements generated in game regarding this matter.

First of all, before you call me cheap, poor etc. I can easially afford the $50 cost of the expansion, I could afford 100 copies if I really wanted to. But afford and willing to pay are different. I find it absurd to charge the full price of a AAA game for how little content is being added. A few new maps, WvW maps, specilization, new class and mastery system. All of those content additions are wonderful, but is it really worth the full price of a game for content that will last less than 24 hours?

Unless there is far more content being hidden away from us as a surprise I refuse to continue supporting this game, when you consider you can pay for various popular MMO’s such as WoW for $15 and in the MONTHLY update already adds more content than this expansion is adding. Granted WoW is a pay to play but you’re still getting 5x more content for your buck.

Am I the only one who feels this way?

LOL!!! MONTHLY?!?!?! You think WoW has MONTHLY patches? Have you ever even PLAYED WoW? WoW barely updates AT ALL. It’s FAMOUS for it.

Recent WoW expansion: http://www.amazon.com/World-Warcraft-Warlords-Draenor-Expansion-Mac/dp/B00GLZQO30/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1436970077&sr=8-1&keywords=warlords+of+draenor

What people are saying about it: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/18194054957

And that’s just one. Google “WoD lack of content” and enjoy the treasure trove of complaining, valid complaining, about Blizzard’s recent offering.

Also, the people whining about A-Net lowering the barrier of entry to new players by rolling GW2 Vanilla into the HoT’s purchase? Unbelievable. “It’s gonna be easier for my friends to join the game now. SCREW YOU A-NET.”

The expansion in $50 (like WoW’s most recent blunder) and Vanilla GW2 is now $0. Stop lying and bending the truth to suit your “Angsty gamer against the man” narrative, folks.

Considering people still go to low level zones in the Vanilla game world and Dry Top/Silverwastes was added as story content for the narrative I am betting that the expansion will launch with one large zone, and more will be rolled out during the Living Story Season 3.

They want people to play and exhaust the first zone. There is no level cap increase, there isn’t a need for “progression” through multiple zones other than your own lack of attention span and constant need for “NEW SHINY” like a skritt on coke.

Let’s be honest: if they put out 3 new zones, you’d all look up on Dulfy “what is the best zone for farming” and that’s where you’d spend 100% of your time. Don’t lie.

New zones will roll out over time with LS 3. I bet you. Alternatively, you can go play WoW or FFXIV and then you can come back with some perspective on just how small, “one and done”, and useless 99% of the content they pump into those games becomes in a 1 month window because of their outdated power creep model.

Maybe that’s what you guys need. To go play something else and get some perspective. If some of you actually believe that WoW updates “monthly”… how out of touch can you be?

Ayrilana.1396:

Gilgamesh.1025:

I always see that all item/product valuable is base on the buyer themselves, not the one that is selling it.

If one person thinks he/she is happy with HoT and willing to buy it now. It is fine by me.

However, HoT to me right now is not set at a fair price. If my friends or family ask me for my 2 cents, I will tell them to not buy it now and wait until we get more information.

I know there is a lot going on in HoT, but so far all I am interested in is the new pve maps.

I do not wvw or pvp much. I own no guild, so guild hall is pointless to me. I have no interest in the new class. I am interested in some of these sub-class or whatever they are call.

guild wars 2 story isn’t that great or even good. <—- I will wait on the review on this.

There is hardly any lore in the game for me to get into the game.

So far, to me. Will I pay $50 for 2 or 3 new maps and some of these sub class and a story that might be good or not? NO!

You’d have to play GW1 to understand the lore. I do highly suggest playing that between now and when you decide the expansion is worth buying.

I do. I own all guild war 1 games and I love them. The combat is different from guild wars 2.

Whatever happen to class quest? I know they move away from quest, but I want to learn more about my class. As of now, I cannot really connect with any of my characters in guild wars 2. I only play these class because they play different, that is all. There is nothing else special about them. The world doesn’t see them as anyone special as well.

I do not like any of these living world characters. Mostly due to how they are introduce to the world. Is like, they just pop up and take over and do that whole comic book super hero thing and try to save the world. And somehow, like comic book super hero, they are super bad-kitten and can take down dragon lords big-boss-minions all by themselves. I do not know, I really cannot get into guild wars 2. However, the game is fun to play…lol.

Guild wars 2 is like one of these super bad movies that is just fun to watch and make fun of (story wise). Combat is super fun, just wish the AI is better. There is no another game like it. I will play it until some guild wars 2 clone pops up, hopefully with better story and characters.

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

To clarify: $50 is the price of the expansion. We included the core game as a free bonus to make it easier for new players to get into it.

So, besides the “free character slot” for players that have been around for a while (like me, who bought the game about 2 weeks after launch) what is my $50 getting me? A new character class that I probably won’t play anyway, because it doesn’t interest me. Opening one new zone on the map and reorganizing the specs for characters (oh wait…that already happened!). Still not interested in paying $50 for a game I already own and what amounts to some DLC that could be downloaded as a game update.

Also, what happened to the Anet announcement about a year ago that there would never be a paid xpac for GW2? It was less then 3 months later that HoT was announced as a paid xpac. You can’t honestly say that no one knew it was being produced. You guys are coming off even more shady then Blizzard right about now.

Lothian.1268:

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

To clarify: $50 is the price of the expansion. We included the core game as a free bonus to make it easier for new players to get into it.

So, besides the “free character slot” for players that have been around for a while (like me, who bought the game about 2 weeks after launch) what is my $50 getting me? A new character class that I probably won’t play anyway, because it doesn’t interest me. Opening one new zone on the map and reorganizing the specs for characters (oh wait…that already happened!). Still not interested in paying $50 for a game I already own and what amounts to some DLC that could be downloaded as a game update.

Also, what happened to the Anet announcement about a year ago that there would never be a paid xpac for GW2? It was less then 3 months later that HoT was announced as a paid xpac. You can’t honestly say that no one knew it was being produced. You guys are coming off even more shady then Blizzard right about now.

There’s more than one zone. Based on what we’ve seen, there’s at least 3. There’s a paid expansion because that’s what many players demanded. Colin even said that there was a strong demand for it from players so the ultimately had to listen to what the players wanted.

There’s still a lot that they haven’t announced yet. There are raids that will likely be included or at least something similar to Teq and TT from their subtle hints.

ok comimg back again i still find people whinning about the price… “get over it” “wait for the release” “go play something else”… if you askme all thouse reasons are as valid as the people that are kitten about the price, for me ill already purchased mine so i dont care anymore, but i have to say that the “new class” balanced or not is epic boring, looks and fels heavy, and the same weapons? come on! if your making a new class with the same weapons mecanics? what about i dont know dual katanas, Psiquic habilities, bizzarre anime/power ranger tranformations? what the hell made them fight laser from their eyes… but the same old kitten…

Lothian.1268:

Also, what happened to the Anet announcement about a year ago that there would never be a paid xpac for GW2? It was less then 3 months later that HoT was announced as a paid xpac. You can’t honestly say that no one knew it was being produced. You guys are coming off even more shady then Blizzard right about now.

I don’t suppose you have a link to that statement, do you? Because I’m fairly certain that ANet has never made a statement saying they would never make a paid xpac for GW2. I remember them making statements to the effect that they were choosing to go with Living Story as a method for delivering content rather than doing it through expansions, but even then they never said “never”.

Not that I’m expending a ton of energy defending them, mind you. I am nearly completely out of patience with ANet as a company. I hate the arrogance with which they refuse to communicate with us. I hate the cowardice displayed when they refuse to even admit to making mistakes (let alone apologizing for them). And now I’m hating the greed I’m seeing in the decision to release a fifty dollar expansion and expect people to either pre-purchase it or pay a penalty fee for a character slot if you choose to wait until release.

So yeah, I’m horribly disappointed in ANet right now. But I still don’t think they said what you think they said.

So let me get this straight, even though I bought GW2 all those years back; I need to buy it again if I wan’t to make any progress. I’ve honestly stopped playing in the first place because once you reach max level and get all the achievements you wanted there was nothing to do, I’m not buying a second copy of the game just to get back into this; without feeling like I’m missing out on a ton of content. I was actually looking into the game today to try and get my friends to play GW2, because I remembered it being a great MMO; and we were trying to think of games to play, just to see that they were no longer able to just buy Guild Wars 2 on it’s own.

It’s really messed up, paying full price when the game was still young, and not getting as much content as paying full price now; I guess I won’t be getting back into the game, and we’ll just play Terraria instead; as Anet clearly doesn’t want us old members back. Us normal gamers are not made of money you know; and the reason we bought the game in the first place as we thought we were going into a game where you get all the actual playing content for just the price of the game.

Now to suddenly force people to buy both the game and the expansion if they even want to play in the first place; that’s just rude.

Vayne.8563:

Every single person I know who plays WoW was disappointed with that $50 expansion. And I know a whole lot of people who play WoW. WoW lost over 3 million subs in record time. It’s very nice for you to defend a game that players are walking away from in droves, but those people didn’t get an update for a year before the expansion launched and many of them didn’t like the expansion. You can say anything you want about me defending this game. Have you even LOOKED at what WoW players have been saying about WoW.

And there really isn’t much content between expansions either. There’s some. But not as much as some people like to portray. A lot of it is reskinned and reused resources that people blast through in no time. Are you suggesting that the WoW playerbase is largely supportive of the new $50 expansion (whatever content you say is in it). Because from my point of view, WoW took a big hit over it…and yes, they’re still charging $15 each and every month. It’s part of the business plan.

Unless you have something constructive to say, I’d stop pointing out I’m defending Anet. Most people knew what a b2p game was signing on. That’s how it works. They provide some content over time and then charge for the next block of content. And they don’t charge a sub fee in between. If you have something of value to say, one would think you could say it without trying to pigeonhole me. There are plenty of things I don’t defend Anet over. I pick my battles. You ignore that because you want to believe I’m a blind fan boy. You have no clue about me.

There are negative threads I’ve never posted in, and some negative threads I have posted in. But you ignore those to try to prove some point. So tell me, you think that $0 expansion and the $15 a month is being well received by WoW players?

You know people who hate it. I know people who love it! See the problem with this argument? It goes nowhere. Everyone knows people. How true those statements are only really matters if you can verify those other people’s statement towards something.

The original subject of your post I replied to was on content for the price, not the quality of said content (of which GW2’s is much higher for the price. Quantity though….Definitely beat by a few other games out there).

So, while we’re on that, and the tiny piece of your post that actually relates to that….

So, one game releases re-skinned and reused resources? There’s evidence that GW2 does the same thing, and not just on free content either. They even did it with paid content. Sure they quickly apologized, and re-released a different skin. It doesn’t erase the history that it happened. Care to acknowledged that problem also exists for this game?

Also, a year with no content updates before an expansion? Do you play GW2? Its been seven months now with no real free content released. There’s been plenty of paid skins, but then again, every game has that. While I hope that Heart of Thorns releases sometime this year, there’s still a pretty significant chunk of time where there’s nothing. Care to answer that? (if you say holiday events, not so fast, as these ‘other games’ have them too, so try another explanation please. Also PvP events and competitions are also done by many other games, so try something else there too.)

Also, not whining about the price (as I bought the 99 dollar option for Heart of Thorns and am pretty confident it will eat at least a month of my time If I can peel my hands off my PS4 controller when several big games start releasing in September). I just hate seeing arguments with holes in them.

Tentain.9250:

So let me get this straight, even though I bought GW2 all those years back; I need to buy it again if I wan’t to make any progress. I’ve honestly stopped playing in the first place because once you reach max level and get all the achievements you wanted there was nothing to do, I’m not buying a second copy of the game just to get back into this; without feeling like I’m missing out on a ton of content. I was actually looking into the game today to try and get my friends to play GW2, because I remembered it being a great MMO; and we were trying to think of games to play, just to see that they were no longer able to just buy Guild Wars 2 on it’s own.

It’s really messed up, paying full price when the game was still young, and not getting as much content as paying full price now; I guess I won’t be getting back into the game, and we’ll just play Terraria instead; as Anet clearly doesn’t want us old members back. Us normal gamers are not made of money you know; and the reason we bought the game in the first place as we thought we were going into a game where you get all the actual playing content for just the price of the game.

Now to suddenly force people to buy both the game and the expansion if they even want to play in the first place; that’s just rude.

The problem you have with what you said is your assumption that you are buying the core game again.

You are not.

This has been stated ad nauseam in this thread.

MiniEquine.6014:

Tentain.9250:

So let me get this straight, even though I bought GW2 all those years back; I need to buy it again if I wan’t to make any progress. I’ve honestly stopped playing in the first place because once you reach max level and get all the achievements you wanted there was nothing to do, I’m not buying a second copy of the game just to get back into this; without feeling like I’m missing out on a ton of content. I was actually looking into the game today to try and get my friends to play GW2, because I remembered it being a great MMO; and we were trying to think of games to play, just to see that they were no longer able to just buy Guild Wars 2 on it’s own.

It’s really messed up, paying full price when the game was still young, and not getting as much content as paying full price now; I guess I won’t be getting back into the game, and we’ll just play Terraria instead; as Anet clearly doesn’t want us old members back. Us normal gamers are not made of money you know; and the reason we bought the game in the first place as we thought we were going into a game where you get all the actual playing content for just the price of the game.

Now to suddenly force people to buy both the game and the expansion if they even want to play in the first place; that’s just rude.

The problem you have with what you said is your assumption that you are buying the core game again.

You are not.

This has been stated ad nauseam in this thread.

You ARE paying for the core game again however you are not receiving another core game account or activation code for doing so. Only NEW players will get the core game for free. Clearly Anet has blinded all common sense from you people who think that you’re not paying for the core game again through this marketing scandal. Nothing is for free in this world.
The way this works is like this:
The core game is probably worth $15.00
The expansion is probably only worth about $35.00
But, Anet wants to make $50.00 per HoT expansion sale so what can they do?
They bundle it together and force existing players who already own the core game to fork over an additional $15.00 just to get an expansion pack for a core game they already own.
Wake up and smell the coffee people.

MiniEquine.6014:

The problem you have with what you said is your assumption that you are buying the core game again.

You are not.

This has been stated ad nauseam in this thread.

There is no such thing as free game even in thoes “free to play” games u need to pay

Jinath.1298:

You ARE paying for the core game again however you are not receiving another core game account or activation code for doing so. Only NEW players will get the core game for free. Clearly Anet has blinded all common sense from you people who think that you’re not paying for the core game again through this marketing scandal. Nothing is for free in this world.
The way this works is like this:
The core game is probably worth $15.00
The expansion is probably only worth about $35.00
But, Anet wants to make $50.00 per HoT expansion sale so what can they do?
They bundle it together and force existing players who already own the core game to fork over an additional $15.00 just to get an expansion pack for a core game they already own.
Wake up and smell the coffee people.

No. You’re paying for the expansion and only the expansion. If you really think that anything labeled as a free bonus isn’t free, then you have a lot to learn about sales/marketing. I suppose you think that a buy one get one free sale for candy bars means that you’re somehow not actually getting the second candy bar for free? Your prices for what you labeled they’re worth are based on your opinions while ignoring the clear fact shown at the top of the page that the expansion costs $50.

Strach.1572:

There is no such thing as free game even in thoes “free to play” games u need to pay

Actually, there is.

Jinath.1298:

Nothing is for free in this world.
The way this works is like this:
The core game is probably worth $15.00
The expansion is probably only worth about $35.00
But, Anet wants to make $50.00 per HoT expansion sale so what can they do?
They bundle it together and force existing players who already own the core game to fork over an additional $15.00 just to get an expansion pack for a core game they already own.
Wake up and smell the coffee people.

This may be the way it works in your fantasy world. The way it works in the real world is decidedly different.

• ANet decides on a price point of $50 for the expansion.
• Existing players will either think that’s OK or not. Some do, some don’t, and that’s a fair point.
• In order to make access easier for new players, they consider: (1) not requiring that players own the core game or (2) making the core game free to play.
• They realize (1) won’t work: there will be no leveling content in the expansion, for one thing.
• They realize (2) has serious repercussions, like unlimited free accounts for gold sellers, unlimited free accounts for login reward farmers and unlimited free accounts for those who like to grief and troll.
• They decide to bundle core and HoT. This removes the access barrier for new players while removing the possibility of free accounts for abusers.

Want some evidence? Look at every single MMO that converted from buy or buy/sub to free with store. Why did they do that? Because they’d lose money? No, they did it because increased numbers of players pump store revenue.

Meanwhile, worth is subjective. Veteran players have to make the decision for themselves whether $50 is a fair price. They should make that decision, but obfuscating the issue with the bogus claim that the vets are paying for core again does nothing but cloud the issue.

I really have no idea what people are screaming about. They include the original game into the expansion so you wont have to buy the game twice as a new player.

I find this a better solution than Blizzard pushing a bruise when you see the Battle Chest being updated every expansion to contain all of them except the newest one. I am sure I paid 30-40 euro/dollar for an expansion x4 (that will be roughly 120-160 euro/dollar counting to Pandaria) which are now included into a 20 euro battle chest. Then still paid 40 euro/dollar for the latest one.

Then add game time 12-14 euro/dollar per month…

I would say that 50 Euro/Dollar for an expansion by itself is already a very very fair price considering what we get back for it, including the entire original game will make it even cheaper than that.

And for people shouting that they should have a choice and that they shouldnt force it on them. I think you should be happy with it considering it will attract more players and possibly your new best friend.

So, all things considered, please calm your russled jimmies and relax knowing it could be far, far worse…

Jinath.1298:

MiniEquine.6014:

The problem you have with what you said is your assumption that you are buying the core game again.

You are not.

This has been stated ad nauseam in this thread.

You ARE paying for the core game again however you are not receiving another core game account or activation code for doing so.

You know who else is not receiving a core game code? Any new player who buys HoT. They receive one code for HoT; that’s it.

Only NEW players will get the core game for free. Clearly Anet has blinded all common sense from you people who think that you’re not paying for the core game again through this marketing scandal. Nothing is for free in this world.

The core game is part of HoT now. Rather, HoT is the core game. You receive one code which contains all HoT and core content. Even if they gave two codes to new players, they are not giving a character slot out to them. 1 character slot = $10, the core game on sale is $10; no difference there.

Also, you too can purchase a completely brand new account if you want the best deal. I won’t deny that new players get a good deal, but that’s because Anet is trying to bring more people into the game. They currently have no incentive aside from this as new players to buy the game if they haven’t done it already. They missed ALL of the limited-time content from season 1 and season 2 of the Living World. LWS2 costs $20 on the gem store, and LWS1 can’t even be played.

The way this works is like this:
The core game is probably worth $15.00

$10, but continue

The expansion is probably only worth about $35.00

$50, but continue

But, Anet wants to make $50.00 per HoT expansion sale so what can they do?
They bundle it together and force existing players who already own the core game to fork over an additional $15.00 just to get an expansion pack for a core game they already own.

This is why they added the character slot. We had every reason to be upset before that because there was no incentive for veteran players to buy it. I thought the game at release would be $40 with a character slot. It turns out it is now $50 with a character slot.

Also, don’t warp the numbers to fit your narrative. The game on sale is $10. It is not $15. Please be objective, otherwise it is very difficult to take you seriously.

Wake up and smell the coffee people.

As long as you remove your tin foil hat.

It’s exactly the price I expected it to be, so with a free slot thrown in I pre-ordered it in a heartbeat. :p

True, I don’t know HoT’s exact contents but based on my enjoyment of GW2 and the value for money it has provided since its release, I’m not really one to doubt or over-analyze my purchase. I like the game, price is completely in line with those of other games/expansions, so hey.

- 2 10 dollar items being offered for ‘free’. One for Veteran Players, character slot. One for New Players, Core game.

- 1 50 dollar expansion.

This mean either Anet is actually offering these 10 dollars items for Free, and is eating 10 dollars for every sale they make due to community backlash, or the expansion is actually only worth 40 dollars, but increased the price to 50 dollars and bundled in a 10 dollar item for ‘free’ to make the deal sound sweeter even though its worth the same. Or maybe the expansion is worth 45 dollars, and Anet raised the price to 50 dollars, threw in a 10 dollar item for ‘free’, and is eating 5 dollars for every sale for the middle ground.

The second two aren’t likely, since the free character slot wasn’t offered until after the fact in what I can only reasonably describe as an apology non-apology. However, after the fact, its all the same value now, and there’s no real argument that can be made.

@Anet
As someone who always speaks their mind without exception, I will say it like this::::

No matter what the issue actually was, and even though I was definitely not happy with how it all started, I think it was resolved in a satisfactory way. But, you can sure bet that in the future, if something similar is pulled again, or if the content for the price really is lackluster as some players fear, there’s going to be a lot of players speaking with their wallets, and no amount of trying to be different from other MMO’s is going to be able to save Guildwars 2.

I hope you guys realize this. A game company can only get so many chances from their customers. There is a game company that pulled a very similar stunt during E3 this year, and is learning that the hard way.

So basically the old player have to pay for the expansion even tough they payed for the main game … and new players get the core game FOR FREE ?!
IS THAT WHAT WE GET FOR BUYING AND PLAYING YOUR GAME !?

JustDark.1869:

So basically the old player have to pay for the expansion even tough they payed for the main game … and new players get the core game FOR FREE ?!
IS THAT WHAT WE GET FOR BUYING AND PLAYING YOUR GAME !?

Welcome to the MMO genre

Ayrilana.1396:

BanitO.4361:

Have to disagree that the inclusion of the base game as a “free bonus” is going to benefit new players. How does a new player know they want HoT if they haven’t even played GW2 before? It makes more sense to discount GW2 permanently to about $20 to make it cheap for someone to get into the game. Then they can decide for themselves if they want to keep playing and upgrade to the expansion. Also lets not forget that if someone were to jump straight into HoT content without doing the personal story and the living story they would have no idea what is going on.

You’re thinking like a current player than a new one.

I don’t think so. That’s the exact formula that got me into WoW.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Complain all you want about HoT lacking value-for-cost for you. However, stop betraying your ignorance about how business works by insisting that the price has been jacked up by the inclusion of the core game. All this does is focus attention on the wrong thing.

ANet has set a price for HoT. In order to stimulate HoT sales, they’ve made core GW2 FREE TO PLAY as part of the package. However, they’re doing this in a way that denies gold sellers and other abusers an infinite supply of accounts. ANet won’t admit this, because going F2P is often presented as a sign that a game has failed. Economically, though, that’s exactly what they’re doing.

So, let’s say that focusing on core game inclusion prompts action by ANet. What is that action likely to be? It’s more likely that core game would be un-bundled and HoT price would still be $50 than that core would be un-bundled and HoT price would drop. Why? Because ANet as much as said so.

So, at that point we’d still be left with the question of whether HoT is worth $50.

I recommend focusing on that, rather than the red herring.

Please tell us of your business education! If you go through my forum profile, you’ll find several explanations of how businesses actually do pricing.

Here’s one here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/HoT-Price-Feedback-Base-game-included-merged/5248640

Suffice it to say they did not at any point in time put a price on HoT independently from their decision about pricing core game. That is not how businesses (any businesses) do pricing. Please drop your attitude.

lukejoe.1592:

Please tell us of your business education! If you go through my forum profile, you’ll find several explanations of how businesses actually do pricing.

Here’s one here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/HoT-Price-Feedback-Base-game-included-merged/5248640

Suffice it to say they did not at any point in time put a price on HoT independently from their decision about pricing core game. That is not how businesses (any businesses) do pricing. Please drop your attitude.

I can certainly believe that ANet may have used a process similar to that which your linked post describes. However, in my relative ignorance, it certainly seems that your description fails to account for something. To wit, how would a pricing process run in a businesses which obtains its ongoing revenue via a virtual store and thus, how would a common MMO industry practice like F2P affect their thinking?

Several wannabe AAA MMO’s have converted to either free to play or Freemium models. This conversion turned at least three of them from considered failures to qualified successes. It seems that in the MMO industry, giving the game for free, particularly while still collecting monthly from a core fan base, can generate more revenue than charging everyone for the game (and the monthly fee). Of course, the remainder of the model has to suffice to entice cash out of players’ accounts and into the company’s. Given that, why wouldn’t ANet consider making GW2 F2P while charging for HoT?

Let’s say that the decision to charge $50 for HoT with the attached core game backfires, resulting in disappointing sales. Posters are assuming that the price would drop. At that point, would ANet un-bundle and give core its own price again? What about the possibility that they decide to keep HoT at $50 while removing the psychological issue that’s generating push-back from some fans (i.e, they remove the free core game but keep the price of HoT the same)?

It seems natural to think that ANet would try to generate as much revenue as possible from HoT, and thus the price would drop. I expect the price will drop over time, as game boxes always do. I doubt it will soon after launch.

Why? Psychological factors. ANet believes in their game and the philosophy behind it. They seem to believe this is a AAA game. They seem to believe their expansion increases the value of GW2 as much as WoD (which debuted at the $50 price) increased the value of WoW — especially when one considers the ongoing rental fee for WoW. They’ve stated definitively at this point that the price of HoT is $50. They’ve been unwilling to back down on a lot of issues, one at least of which has certainly cost them customers (their communication policy).

Maybe I’m wrong.

Well, their unwillingness to slash the price for current game owners, has cost them a customer in me. Hopefully it means something to them, hopefully a mass exodus of the cash shop using player base is coming, and maybe that will make them see reason.

lukejoe.1592:

Please tell us of your business education! If you go through my forum profile, you’ll find several explanations of how businesses actually do pricing.

Here’s one here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/HoT-Price-Feedback-Base-game-included-merged/5248640

Suffice it to say they did not at any point in time put a price on HoT independently from their decision about pricing core game. That is not how businesses (any businesses) do pricing. Please drop your attitude.

Or they actually priced HoT separately. Projections were then ran for just the core game on whether they would have more sales from new players if it were included free rather than separately.

IndigoSundown.5419:

To wit, how would a pricing process run in a businesses which obtains its ongoing revenue via a virtual store and thus, how would a common MMO industry practice like F2P affect their thinking?

I don’t know, but what you’re showing us is that ANET has increased incentive to adopt pricing strategies in the context of their entire portfolio of products not that they would price independently.

Only ANET knows what specific metrics they use to evaluate the success of their in-game purchase model and so knows how they make pricing decisions for those services, but I would imagine that at some point they have been able to translate either total logged gameplay hours or total active players (as defined by them) to revenue over time.

You might be thinking that it is overly complex for ANET to balance their desire for profit on game sales with their desire for profit from in game sales because they seem like they are in opposition. But if you or I were given the same assumptions used by ANET to predict unit sales at x price and then unit sales*in game revenue/time we could write a linear program model in Excel that would find our optimal price pretty easily.

I don’t have any privileged information concerning the numbers or tactical choices that govern ANETs pricing decision, but I can tell you roughly how it’s being made. That ANET has two pieces of software to price instead of one complicates the process for them, but it doesn’t change the basic process for arriving at the optimal number (which is ANETs goal).

So some of us are being cut out by the model. We’re the ones who at the 50$ unit price are self selecting out of the market for in game services. If all of the assumptions they made in their model are accurate they still have an optimal price.

Yet our position is that (optimal price or not) we want the game to be cheaper (it’s our right to be advocates for our interests and not for ANETs) and that given this thread is now on 112 pages and we still have people saying “Whoa this is too expensive and I don’t want to subsidize the experience for new players” ANET may have gotten core assumptions wrong and need to resolve their model to get an actually optimized price!

What the savvy person needs to take away is that this is the math behind pricing and the marketing language given here (“To clarify: $50 is the price of the expansion. We included the core game as a free bonus to make it easier for new players to get into it.”) is a way of framing the math for customers in a way that (hopefully) increases their perception of game/brand (um…FAIL!).

It’s actually the price of HoT and the wording of that answer that were arrived at as independent decisions, not the respective prices of HoT and the core game.

Ask yourself, to the new player: what is the difference between paying 50$ for HoT and getting the core game free and paying 50$ for the core game and getting HoT free? There is none.

So while ANET is telling us that everyone is paying 50$ for the expansion, it’s equally true to say that only existing player are paying 50$ for the expansion and new players are all just getting HoT for free.

lukejoe.1592:

- snip -

Thanks for taking the time to post the exposition. I am also wondering whether ANet has failed to accurately predict the push back on the pricing issue.

I could say more, but this sideshow has gone on long enough.

For my own sanity, I will continue to evaluate whether HoT is worth the asking price based on what it offers, because I don’t think the price will drop before the XPac depreciates over time. However, I will no longer comment in this thread on points others make unless they’re obviously, factually wrong.

I was getting hyped about the expansion (enough to return to the game) until I read a few pages of this thread. I think I’m gonna sit back for now and wait to see how things play out before deciding to return.

I dislike the notion of bundling the base game with the expansion, especially if I’m not actually getting a second copy of the base game. If I got a code for it I could give it to a friend or something, but this just seems distasteful.